Happily Imperfect. Stacey Solomon

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СКАЧАТЬ x 1.5kg whole chicken

      2 tablespoons butter

      1 lemon, halved

      salt and pepper

      For the rice

      280g white long-grain rice

      2 onions, peeled and chopped

      2 tablespoons olive oil

      2 teaspoons turmeric

      A pinch of saffron

      1/2 teaspoon salt

      600ml water

      Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Place the chicken into a foiled roasting tin, rub the softened butter over the chicken and season generously. Put the cut lemon inside the chicken. Bung it into the oven and roast for 80–90 minutes. Stab it with a skewer: if the juices run clear, it’s done. If not, put it back into the oven for another 10 minutes, then test again.

      Half an hour before you want to serve, make the rice. Heat up the oil in a saucepan, add the chopped onion and cook for two minutes until starting to soften. Add the turmeric, saffron, salt and rice. Cover with the water and bring to a simmer for 8 minutes. Place a lid on top and turn the heat off. Leave the lid on until the rice is fully cooked and all the water is absorbed. Fluff with a fork and serve with the chicken. Enjoy!

      Dad’s Spicy Shepherd’s Pie

      I’ll let Dad speak for himself here, as it’s his recipe after all: ‘I made this differently every time, but mostly it looks something like this. My spice mix varies according to how I feel on the day I’m making it, but I always have chilli, loads of chilli. My grandparents were Iraqi Jews who traded coffee in Burma. When the Japanese invaded they fled to Calcutta before moving to London in the 1950s. My heritage is where I get my love for spicy food, and I was always trying to share this with my children as they grew up.’

      Serves at least 8, ‘because that’s how many I routinely had round my dining-table.’

      You’ll need:

      2 tablespoons vegetable or coconut oil

      500g lean lamb mince and Quorn

      1–2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped

      1 stick celery, finely chopped

      1 carrot, finely chopped

      1 garlic clove, finely chopped

      1 teaspoon chilli powder or 1 fresh chilli, deseeded and chopped

      1 teaspoon ground cumin

      200g frozen peas

      1 tablespoon tomato purée

      100ml vegetable or lamb stock

      For the topping

      500g sweet potatoes

      600g potatoes

      1 tablespoon milk

      ‘I used half mince and half Quorn to make it healthier, and none of the kids ever noticed.’ Heat half the oil. Fry the lamb mince and the Quorn together in the oil. Once the meat has browned, remove it from the pan and set it aside. Fry the onions in the remaining tablespoon of oil, until they are softening, about 5 minutes, then add the celery and carrot. Continue to fry for a couple of minutes, then add the garlic, chilli and cumin. Let them cook for a minute, then tip in the peas. Add the mince mixture with the tomato purée, and a little vegetable or lamb stock to moisten the mixture. Leave to cook for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat.

      Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6.

      Meanwhile, peel and chop the sweet potatoes and the potatoes. Add them to a big pan of boiling salted water. When they are cooked, about 15 minutes, drain and mash them with the milk.

      Tip the mince and vegetable mixture into a large greased baking dish, then smooth the potato mixture over the top. Put it into the oven for 35 minutes, until the top has browned.

      ‘Hey presto – Spicy Shepherd’s Pie!’

      CHAPTER 6

       Mum Guilt!

      Zachary: ‘Mummy …’

      Me: ‘Yes, Zach?’

      Zachary: ‘Can we please live in a tent?’

      Me (spluttering on my bottle of water): ‘Erm, why do you ask?’

      Zachary: ‘Because then you won’t have to work and you can stay at home all day with us. We don’t need new toys, we just need a tent so you can be with us.’

      Bam! Mum Guilt, right there. It’s inescapable and, it seems to me, inherent in any parent. Even if my rational mind knows we’re better off with me working and building a future for them, I fold when one of my children says something like that. Within seconds I’m hastily reviewing all of my career choices and wondering if we could live in a tent – which, by the way, would be a disaster. Sorry, Zachary, but no. They’d soon regret it when it came to Christmas in the tent, and me having to say, ‘Guys, no toys this year, but that’s what you wanted.’ Can you imagine their reaction?

      I overthink everything when it comes to being a mummy. A prime example is at breakfast time. Most days the boys beg me to make dippy eggs. I have to leave for the Loose Women studio by 6.45 a.m. so I usually fob them off with a bowl of Weetabix before I run out of the door. Do I feel guilty? Hell, yeah. Do I also provide them with a strong female role model, a working mum supporting her family? Hell, yeah, to that too. But the doubts never go away.

      Should I get up earlier to make dippy eggs each morning? No, I’d get tired, do my job badly, upset producers, shout at my kids, then not be able to pay the mortgage, but my head will still tell me I’m not a great mummy because I make the choices I make.

      Some nights when the boys were younger, they’d both be asleep next to me in my bed, one on either side, while I worked on my laptop. Some people say that co-sleeping is bad as it makes children dependent, but others say it makes them feel loved and secure.

      For us, it was a natural solution to make bedtimes easier when Zach and Leighton were younger. We all loved snuggling up together, and who’s to say that was wrong? But I still doubted my decision: should I make them sleep in their own beds? I wondered. Have I messed them up mentally by letting them sleep with me? Loads of psychology books and the parenting advice you can read online strongly suggest that sleeping in the same bed with your children can be detrimental to their development. Well, not only do the boys and I thoroughly enjoy sleepovers in my bed, but at 3 a.m. when Leighton climbs out of his bunk bed to go for his early-morning pee, I’m not up for a debate as to where he СКАЧАТЬ